Ever since I heard about Hong Sheng Restaurant in Toa Payoh and had an opeh leaf hor fun there, I was dying to return to try out their cze char dishes. Aiyah, unfortunately this is one place you must really come early like 5pm or be prepared to wait for 1-2 hours for your food to be cooked. Nevermind that no stalls are allowed to open in the evening and they occupy the whole coffeeshop at dinner time, the fact is it is easy to get a seat but the modus operandi here is a bit different – the chef will cook “table by table”, which means that once an order went into the kitchen, the assigned chef will complete everything in that order before he moves on to the next. So if you have 5 orders infront of your order, then potentially you will be kept staring at the ceiling for at the very least, 1 hour.

Hong Sheng Restaurant kitchen

At 5pm on a weekend, the crowd already started to appear and there were 3 families with nothing on their table – yet. This place just smacks of authenticity. Opeh leaves were lying everywhere in the kitchen ready for takeaway food. For all your take away cze char staples like fried rice, fried bee hoon or fried mee, they would be packed in the opeh leaf($5).

Hor fun $3

After almost 30 mins of waiting, our plate of $3(non opeh leaf) hor fun arrived. This is technically the same thing with a $5 opeh leaf version except that this is a smaller serving with no opeh leaf. The taste in this is no doubt as good as the $5 version with the same colorful assortment of ingredients like pig stomach(tripe), seafood and generous amount of choi sum. Possibly one of the better $3 ones around though the wok hei was pretty weak.

红烧豆府 aka red broiled beancurd $8

On the recommendation of the waitress who took our order, we ordered a 红烧豆府 which is beancurd cooked in “red broiled” sauces with miscellaneous ingredients like seafood, pork and even pig stomach too. For $7, the portion is big but the gravy lacked the kind of oomph that can make this outstanding. Definitely not one of the better ones around but it’s attractive point is in the generous portion I guess. Wouldn’t mind to order this again next time though the flavour is not quite there when compared to the really tok kong(outstanding) ones I’ve eaten elsewhere.

Sambal Kangkong $7

The sambal kangkong is also quite a big portion and tasted quite good too though this is one dish that is very easy to impress and hard to disappoint so there were no surprises. If you need a safe fibre dish to go along then this is it. Lastly, the pai kuat wong though not exactly outstanding but didn’t disappoint too. Had the right balance of sweetness and sourness though there seems to be a hint of ginger flavour which is quite dissimilar with the flavour of common spare rib king but it was quite tasty nonetheless.

Spare Rib king $7

Hong Sheng Restaurant looks good on paper with all the ‘impressive credentials’ but my umami somehow didn’t quite kick in. Some says Hong Sheng is famous for it’s ‘Claypot Fish Head Stew’ so I might had ordered the wrong items but it is no doubt that the meal was quite satisfying and definitely not that bad for a cze char meal. $24 for 4 dishes at a place where ‘Toa Payohers’ get their cze char fixes for several decades just tells me that it is too cheap to be true though on this occasion, it only managed to satisfy me. I will definitely come back to try other popular dishes to see whether any of those can really shiok me.

Price: $27(included drinks of about $3)

Recommendation: Famous for Claypot Fish Head Stewed. Hor fun, salted fried rice and fried bee hoon are said to be good.

Conclusion: One of the cheaper cze char stalls around. Quality isn’t that bad but definitely has room for improvement. Would come back to try the other popular dishes.